We need a Holiday!

01.06.2015

This weeks’ blog is about holidays; how to recognise the signs you need to get away and why we feel better for it when we do…..

I love holidays; I love the countdown (28 working days to go!!!!) I love looking at the destination on the internet a zillion times, I love the excitement! Sometimes we leave it far too long before getting away, even for a short break, we can get so caught up in our job and think that we simply cannot take time off because we’re far too busy and before you know it we’ve gone past the cut off time for annual leave!

Back in the middle ages workers were allowed to rest on Holy Days – hence the word holiday. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that workers got a few days paid holiday leave each year. Nowadays employers encourage us to take annual leave; they recognise that we will be less productive and more prone to mistakes, in other words useless!

We owe it to our ancestors to make sure we use our annual leave! Most of us don’t have a problem with this and plan regular breaks throughout the year. It doesn’t have to be a full 14 days away, the benefits of a long weekend can do us the power of good.

Friday night (if you’re not working the weekend) and your mood is lifted; two days off! But come Sunday evening and your brain slips back into work mode again, we are on a habitual wheel of stop start, what we really need is a few days off to completely rest the brain.

Signs that you need a break

You are finding it hard to sleep, your mind buzzes with things you need to do

You smell coconut oil and immediately are transported back to the beach

You are seriously considering defriending people who keep posting photos of their holiday on social media sites (I really don’t want to see what you’re having for dinner btw!!)

You keep getting every bug going

You’re so pale your foundation is 6cm thick and that’s just the men!

You are getting more and more irritable

You are so desperate to wear your new summer wardrobe you wear it any way and freeze

You actually start to hate that colleague who keeps talking about their imminent travels

You still have some foreign currency from your last holiday in a drawer but when you find it it’s actually pesetas

Travellers on public transports dragging suitcases annoy you even more than usual

You work such long hours you’ve forgotten what your family look like and frighten the kids when you get home at night when they ask who that stranger is in their house!

You feel unfit and lethargic because you don’t have time to exercise

When you do get home you eat, gawp at the TV then go to bed, all in 30 minutes.

Some holidays can be as stressful as being at home, especially if you have young children. The amount of luggage needed is similar to an evacuation of a small country; older kids get bored, younger kids scream for the whole 2.5 hour flight and remind me, this is meant to do us good???

The key is to be organised, get the kids things to play with/ keep them occupied. Travel at times when children won’t be over-tired. (When a baby cries because it’s ‘over- tired’, why doesn’t it just go to sleep?!) Or, take grandparents with you, they’ll jump at the chance of spending two weeks with their grandchild and you get to relax, everyone’s happy, result! or as Del Boy would say, Bonne de douche!

Even without children holidays can be stressful;I know a successful business man who takes three weeks annual leave at once; it takes him one week to unwind, relaxes for one week and then starts to get stressed on the third week in anticipation of returning home! He is continually looking at work emails so he really isn’t switching off at all.

Don’t forget the holiday essentials;

Try not to over-pack, how many times have you gone away and only used a quarter of the contents of your case? Take the essentials…

Sunscreen- Keep young children out of the sun, our lovely British children tend to burn under a light bulb so make sure they are smothered in cream and protective clothing, sun hats, large tree

Read my previous blog Bring Me Sunshine for tips on how to look after your skin on holiday

Make sure before you go you have had vaccinations for far off places

Take out holiday insurance- I don’t have to explain why

Take a small first aid kit- Imodium, pain killers etc

Don’t drink the water! Use bottled water and stay hydrated

Insect repellent and after bite. British people are very tasty to mossies, avoid wearing perfume or aftershave in the evening, they love it!

Of course, your holiday doesn’t have to be sun, sea and sand, relaxation for you may be climbing a mountain or playing golf, whatever it takes for you to switch off, re-charge your batteries and de-stress is good. Just by getting out in the fresh air, doing some physical activity and turning off your brain are all the things you need to feel human again!

Don’t ruin all the benefits you have just got from your holiday and get stressed when you have to come back. If you can, take a couple of days extra so that you don’t walk off the plane and straight back into work.

Back in the old days we used to take holiday photo’s and have to send them off to be developed. Imagine that, not seeing your snaps for at least five days after your holidays have finished! I can still remember the excitement of collecting the wallet of 24 or 36 photos and I can still remember the disappointment of the lense cap being accidently left on, the thumb over the lense or the exposure damage to the film! Now and again there’d be a good one, a memory of the holiday to keep. Now we see your selfies and pouts before you’re back!

Now you’re back you should feel refreshed, a new person. You’ve been re-introduced to your family/ husband/ wife /partner. You can go back to work with a spring in your step, just don’t go on about your holiday too much, there will be someone there needing a holiday who just may kill you…